Doktor Faust, which Busoni considered a personal creative drama and which occupied him for over twelve years, was left incomplete on his death at the age of 58. He had searched for a dramatic subject that he hoped would represent the apex and summary of his entire career. The opera was completed by Philipp Jarnach in 1925. As the librettist, Busoni managed to avoid comparison to Goethe, and in favouring an open, discontinuous form ‘in panels’, he developed a unique structure cast in two preludes, an orchestral intermezzo and three scenes to investigate poetic questions of operatic artifice.